Comatose Telescope

2006

“I remember turning the key and stumbling in.

 I remember all the pain but not the source.

I say these things and I’m staring forward;

Where do I go from here?...”

 

Spiking out from beneath a great horizon

Of sheet metal, rubber and glass,

An insect graveyard lights up,

And silky pine needles perpetrate upon the eye

In restless evocation.

 

It was at once a piercing blade into the milky white flesh;

Drawing forth a salty Baltic sea to make

Sponge squeezed eyes.

 

The world around seems to turn loose its colorful gaze;

Faded behind glass--soft like a ghost.

 

And you whisper sweet stillness

Which is offbeat and ridiculing.

You who some call subconscious; a comatose telescope,

Calming the battlefield within.

Your numbness cleans me.

 

The storm subsides and

An American cowboy rides into the sunset

With a sheet metal coffin

That gallops all rubbery and smooth-like.

 

She’s a ridin’ now, look at her go.

You have to die to be reborn

And a coffin with some cargo can go a long way.

 

So I’m waving goodbye superfluous pre-self,

Plastic toys and pillaging dreams;

At least for today--at least for tomorrow.

 

I’m on a pilgrimage

To find the glee-est of ice cream for the soul;

The grandest of ecstasy for the eye.

 

 

 

These are my thoughts while the blindness covers

The soft cameras in my face

And my brain is all over exposed film.

 

The cliffs edge doesn’t register as it travels

As fast forward as the phone post flying by.

 

And what does register are all the sweet

Memories that seep into the white rays.

 

Strange, how many and beautiful they are;

And piling up like an endless blanket to rescue me;

A safety net for my heart.

 

“This must be where I’ve been wanting to go

For so long”, I say as if someone were listening.

 

I blink a few times peacefully

And then again strong and quick.

 

Friendly iridescent shapes playfully dance before me

Or perhaps they are trying to warm me.

 

But I do nothing but smile

And await my destination.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2001-2010 Eric Ridge